Note on Legal Resources
Some of you may be familiar with Lexis.com and Westlaw. At Northeastern, these resources are reserved for the use of Law School affiliates. Snell Library provides access to Westlaw Campus Research which is the academic library version of Westlaw.
NOTE: Despite the limitations noted above, all NU affiliates may visit and borrow materials from the NU Law Library. Several Law Library databases are accessible to all, including HeinOnline and Law 360.
Massachusetts residents/students have access to Westlaw and Lexis through the state Trial Court Library system. There are 15 trial court libraries in the Commonwealth; check the Trial Court Library site for locations and information about resources and user privileges.
Understanding the Legislative Process
- How Our Laws Are MadeOnline document provided by the Parliamentarian of the U.S. House of Representatives and now available through Congress.gov.
- The Legislative Process (videos)This nine-part series explains how a bill becomes a law from its introduction to Presidential approval.
- Glossary of Legislative TermsThe Legislative Process Glossary in Congress.gov provides assistance with the specialized vocabulary of law-making. A nine part video series illustrates each step of the law-making process.
- Federal Legislative History ResearchFor a "how to" guide on compiling legislative histories, check the website of the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C.
Legislative History
There are a number of sources for tracking legislative histories. Two excellent options, Congress.gov and ProQuest Congressional, are compared below.
Also consider:
U.S. Federal Legislative History Library (HeinOnline) - The Hein company hires legal experts to prepare selected legislative histories. If you're lucky, the collection will include materials of interest for your research!
What's the difference?
| Congress.gov | ProQuest Congressional |
|---|---|
| Official; materials come directly from Congressional sources. | Commercial product licensed for the NU community; requires login |
| Cleaner, more intuitive interface. Advanced search form is more complex, though less complicated than that of ProQuest Congressional. | Interface powerful, but requires practice! |
| Updated daily; most content from 1995 onwards, though some materials go back to 1973. | Most publication series updated daily; contains substantial numbers of historical materials. For example, hearings go back to 1824. |
| Offers a "policy area terms" limiter. Legislative history is complete, providing excellent timelines for legislative action; few documents are linked. | Provides in-depth legislative histories, linking all related documents, including the Congressional Record. Congress.gov provides better timelines, but ProQuest offers more supporting documentation. |
| **Related news articles are included and linked to documents; many come from smaller regional newspapers. Also includes political news from the Washington Post (1987-), Roll Call (1998-) and CQ Political Transcripts (1995-). | |
| Use for: bills, brief legislative histories, committee hearings and reports, links to members and committees, roll call votes, | Use to find: bills, extensive legislative histories, hearings, reports, committee prints, Congressional Record texts related to legislation, vote reports, witness testimony, and special features (material contains illustrations or statistics). Also provides links to members and committees as well as proposed and final rules and regulations. |
Notes on Laws
Notes on Finding Laws:
Session Laws - Compilations of session laws provide a chronological record of laws passed in a specific time period. For example, in Congress, a session is a two-year legislative period. To see a law as it appeared on the day it was signed into law, use session laws.
Codes - To see a law as it has been incorporated into the body of laws and amended since the date of passage, use codes.
In legal proceedings, it's important to cite official versions of codes and session laws. Codes published in sources like Westlaw Campus are useful for research, but are not considered "official" texts. In many instances, including the United States Code and the General Laws of Massachusetts, the print texts are considered authoritative.
Federal Laws
- GovinfoSelect Statutes at Large for session laws and the U.S. Code for codified laws.
- Westlaw Proposed and Enacted LegislationMaterials at both the federal and state levels.
- Statutes at Large, 1951-2014Session laws for the U.S.
Massachusetts Laws
- Bills and Laws page - General Court of Massachusetts (legislature)Provides access to bills, session laws, and the codified General Laws.
- Acts and Resolves of MassachusettsSession laws of the Commonwealth.
Laws from Other States
Use the States and Territories link (Law Library of the Library of Congress). Links to state legislative sites provide access to bills, session laws, and codes of law. State pages also include links to legal guides, maps, and some primary sources.
Other options include:
- HeinOnline (Courtesy of Law Library)Select the State Collection near the top of the Welcome screen.Hein's State Collection includes session laws for the fifty states, the National Survey of State Laws, and Subject Compilations of State Laws.
- State Legal Materials CollectionFrom the Cornell University Legal Information Institute (LII)